Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness; it is the one crime in which society has a direct interest.

It is very difficult for people to believe the simple fact that every persecutor was once a victim. Yet it should be very obvious that someone who was allowed to feel free and strong from childhood does not have the need to humiliate another person.

Alice Miller

Self-pity is easily the most destructive of the nonpharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality.

Tlume, my little crystal glass, three paths are bad for men: to see the beauty of the world and yet to say it is ugly; to wake up early in the morning to do what one is incapable of; and to give free course to ones dreams without being careful because whoever dreams becomes a victim of his dreams.

Simone Schwarz-Bart

Never assume one child is always the victim and the other the aggressor. Remember, no matter how things appear, it takes two to tango. If you look closely enough ... you will see how the victim subtly provokes the aggressor into attacking.

Ron Taffel

I am the sanest man who ever lived. But I will not be tortured. I tear torture out of myself by torturing you.

David Boehm

The Harmless Torturers. In the Bad Old Days, each torturer inflicted severe pain on one victim. Things have now changed. Each of the thousand torturers presses a button, thereby turning the switch once on each of the thousand instruments. The victims suffer the same severe pain. But none of the torturers makes any victim's pain perceptibly worse.

Derek Parfit

She was poor, but she was honest,
Victim of the squire's whim:
First he loved her, then he left her,
And she lost her honest name.

On the whole, "organic" illnesses of the body are viewed as a misfortune over which the victim has little control. Not so for "mental" illnesses. These diseases of the mind become diseases of the "self." We (our "selves") can distance ourselves from our "bodily" illnesses: "my leg is broken" or "my heart is failing." But, because of mind-body dualism, our mind is our self. "My mind is sick" is not differentiated psychologically from "I am sick." We cannot distance ourselves, take a detached view of our minds: we are our minds. When a disease affects brain function, the afflicted person and those around him feel that the "self" must be somehow in control of the disorder of "self."

Till now, society has protected the adult and blamed the victim. It has been abetted in its blindness by theories, still in keeping with the pedagogical principles of our great- grandparents, according to which children are viewed as crafty creatures, dominated by wicked drives, who invent stories and attack their innocent parents or desire them sexually. In reality, children tend to blame themselves for their parents' cruelty and to absolve the parents, whom they invariably love, of all responsibility.